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I close my eyes, picturing it. “It sounds like a dream. So you were never actually a captain?”
“In my dreams, I am.”
“Mmm … I’d love to feel the ocean’s breeze run its fingers through my—” I open my eyes. “Are you sure you’re not a poet or some shit?”
Upon opening my eyes, I catch him staring at my chest again. He meets my gaze. “That’s not my line of work, I’m afraid.”
“No. Buying and selling businesses. Trade. All things commerce. That’s your specialty. That’s the golden goose that keeps laying your eggs. Though I’m still not fully convinced you’re not a therapist.”
He smiles. “I forgot how much I’ve told you.”
“Almost feels like I know you for real, huh?”
“And what about my question from earlier? And you can’t blame it on the wine for ignoring my question.” He meets my eyes importantly. “Why’d you agree to meet me tonight?”
I lay on my back and put my hands behind my head. It has the unintended effect of pulling Rich’s eyes right back to my body, where my abs crunch slightly by the effort. “Because I was curious.”
“Curious?”
“What you’re like. What makes you tick.”
Richie nods slowly, listening—and attempting to avoid direct eye contact with my abs. “And have you figured it out yet? … What makes me tick?”
I chuckle. “I’m honestly conflicted. When I first met you, I thought you were just a horny guy. It didn’t take long before I realized that there was something different about you.”
“There’s something different about you, too.”
He looks away, pensive. I watch his mind as it drifts off somewhere. “Hey, Captain Rich.”
He flinches at the sound of my voice, then turns back to me. “Yes?”
“What’s on your mind?”
Richie chuckles, then nods at my chest. “Other than your mysterious tattoos and rippling abs?”
“They’re not that rippled. There are models on VirtualTease who are twice as ripped as I am, with perfect faces, big careers, huge followings. Yet you found yourself fixated on me for some reason. I’m not the big fish on that site by any means.”
“Don’t talk yourself down so much. You are … everything to me on that site. And now, finally, off the site as well,” he adds with a smile.
I sit up and lean back against the couch with an arm propped up on it, which brings myself closer to Richie. He responds by straightening up as well, staring intently back at me.
“So what’s on your mind?” I ask again, quietly.
His eyes drop to my lips.
I might have a guess exactly what’s on his mind.
Until he speaks: “I have felt invisible most of my adult life. It’s no surprise. Even when I was younger, I was so busy working. Men like me, we understand what it’s like to live invisibly in the … the shadows of the nightclubs, or the gay bars, or the … well, wherever the gay men are these days.” A smile teases its way onto his lips. “Until I get on that site, log in to your room … and I’m alive. I’m visible. I’m seen. You, Zak … you see me. And you make me feel more alive than anything. That’s the real reason men like me feel such a connection with men like you. It’s a moment when someone as …” He lets out a sigh of delight. I smell the wine on his breath—sweet, cloying. “… as beautiful as you, for that lovely moment, pays full attention to me.”
“I’m happy I make you feel that way …” I tell him, feeling so much closer to him with every word we share, “but you deserve to always feel seen.”
“I’m no fool, either,” he goes on. “Yes, I know it’s … an illusion. A convincing, beautiful illusion. I know what we have wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t …” He struggles to say it out loud. “If I hadn’t paid for it, in short. I know that if we remove the payment from the equation … I’d just be another desperate man, begging for attention, and not tipping you anything. Your attention is paid for. In some ways, it isn’t real at all. I know that. But—”
“Richie …”
“Please, just let me finish.” He averts his eyes. “My point is, it’s worth it to me. It fulfills me, even if it’s just temporary. Even if someone might hear this and think I’m nothing but some sad old man, paying for a beautiful, young man’s attention …”
“You are a smart, good-looking man,” I tell him, cutting him off despite him clearly having more to say. “You wouldn’t need to pay for it. Any man … Any man would be lucky to call you theirs. It’s just easier to pay for a sure thing on a cam site. I get it. And hey, look at it this way: Maybe the same can be said about me. I can find another way to make money. I could be that bartender downstairs who just poured us both a vodka tonic. I could be in the kitchens, whipping up grilled cheese sandwiches at one in the damned morning. It’s a slower climb to my dreams than VirtualTease, but it’s still a climb.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t go wasting your breath calling yourself a ‘sad old man’ when you and I both know that isn’t what you are.”
